Irish mother in quarantine renews appeal for family to be released from 'unsuitable' hotel rooms

An Irish mother in quarantine with her three children and her husband is renewing her appeal today to be released from their “cramped and unsuitable” hotel rooms.

Michelle O’Dowd and her husband Ciaran O’Reilly and their three young daughters have been confined to their hotel room at the Crown Plaza Hotel in Santry in Dublin since being taken there from Dublin Airport yesterday.

On Friday evening, they lodged an appeal with department officials to be moved out of the two interconnecting rooms on the basis that the rooms were too small to confine three children and two adults.

“We do not have enough space for our children. There isn’t even enough room to move around freely or to play board games. There is just a tiny circular table in each room that are completely unsuitable,” she said.

She said families should be given more space to live in, such as an aparthotel or an apartment.

“I was told I was lucky we had one of the few inter-connecting rooms on the floor. That means that other families won’t even have the space we have. I was told that all four hotels in this hotel group had more or less the same rooms, so these hotels are not suitable for families at all,” she said.

An offer of an extra room was turned down because who ever was placed in the extra room would have to remain apart from the others, she said.

“The meals in the hotel are really good and the staff are very helpful and lovely. But the rooms are too small and unsuitable,” for her family, she said.

The couple have moved back to Ireland this weekend after spending seven years working abroad. They have a home in Easkey in County Sligo and they had intended to move in immediately on their arrival in Ireland.

The quarantine rules became active at 4am on Friday and their jet landed in Dublin shortly after 11am. They now face a hotel bill of more than €5,000, they said.

Michelle is from Easkey and is a nurse. She will begin a new nursing job in Sligo University Hospital in the same ward where she worked seven years ago. Ciaran is a lorry driver. The couple and their children lived for two years in New Zealand and five years in Australia.

“We lived the last five years in Perth which was the safest place in the world as it only had one case of Covid in the past year and that case was in a quarantine hotel.

“It is very unfair that a nurse and a truck driver have to pay more than €5,000 of a hotel bill just because our plane landed in Dubai on the way to Dublin. We only entered the airport building for 45 minutes to visit an empty McDonald’s restaurant. It is very unfair that transit passengers have to be subject to quarantine in Ireland,” she said.

“Our daughter Cadhla is celebrating her ninth birthday tomorrow and we had hoped to celebrate it with a cake at home in Easkey. It is so unfair,” she said.

She said she and her husband went to the lobby of the hotel by arrangement on Friday night where they made their requests to me moved out of their rooms to an Irish Army liaison officer. They filled in forms and received their reply from State officials today.

“We are making our appeals again,” she said.

One of their rooms have two double beds and the other room has a double bed and tiny table.

A manager at the Crown Plaza Hotel said today that the hotel was unable to give a response to the claims by Ms O’Dowd that the bedrooms were too small and unsuitable for families with three children.

A Department of Health spokeswoman said they do not comment on individual cases.

“The Department of Health is in constant contact with Tifco Hotel Group about all issues relating to the management of mandatory hotel quarantine. At all times, our priority is to ensure that everyone completing their period of mandatory quarantine is comfortable and secure.

“The Department and Tifco continue to work together to ensure this is the case. At present, the only mandatory quarantine hotel in use is The Crowne Plaza Dublin Airport,” she said.

A Department of Justice spokesman said the hotel accommodation was a matter for the Department of Health which was in charge of quarantine accommodation.

Online Editors